Short Poems

Today I will go once again
Into life, into haggling, into market,
And lead the army of my songs
To duel against the market tide.

If ever there were a spring day so perfect, so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze

Though night is always close, complete negation
Ready to drop on wisdom and emotion,
Night from the air or the carnivorous breath,
Still it is right to know the force of death,
And, as you do, persistent, tough in will,
Raise from the excellent the better still.

Cruel of heart, lay down my song,
Your reading eyes have done me wrong,
Not for you was the pen bitten,
And the mind wrung, and the song written.

COME, Sleep! but mind ye! if you come without
The little girl that struck me at the rout,
By Jove! I would not give you half-a-crown
For all your poppy-heads and all your down.

Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth, -
And ever changing, like a joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy?

The lovely doe, far from her home, whose lover is angry—why did she
laugh? She laughed at the daughter of Edom and the daughter of Arabia who covet her beloved. Why, they are nothing but wild asses, and how can they compare to the doe who nestled against her gazelle? Where is the spirit of prophecy found, where the lampstand, the Ark of the Covenant, the ever-present Shekinah? No, my rivals, do not try to quench love, for if you do, it will blaze up like fire!

Translated by T. Carmi

Who can the hardest Task refuse,
When lovely Lady Betty sues?
If her Requests Resistance find,
It must be from the Deaf and Blind.

When future ages shall with wonder view
These glorious lines which Harley's daughter drew,
They shall confess that Britain could not raise
A fairer column to the father's praise.

Smoothly and lightly the golden seed by the furrow is cover'd;

Yet will a deeper one, friend, cover thy bones at the last.
Joyously plough'd and sow'd! Here food all living is budding,

E'en from the side of the tomb Hope will not vanish away.